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Author Biography

Geoff joined TidBITS in 1994 as Managing Editor, served as Technical Editor through 2006, and is now Editor at Large. Geoff's also a working musician, freelance writer & editor, and sometime Web developer.

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In a move to protect the open Internet, President Obama has called for the FCC to regulate ISPs as common carriers like phone companies. Can that happen, given America’s ever-more-polarized political climate? And would it actually help?

Consumer advocates have derided Comcast for putting the squeeze on Netflix, but is the company perhaps becoming an unexpected ally of privacy advocates by putting the same squeeze on the U.S. government?

A U.S. Appeals Court has struck down key provisions of net neutrality rules in the United States, so ISPs could start favoring (or discriminating against) certain online services. But don’t expect big changes overnight.

Revelations from classified documents acquired by Edward Snowden are showing us how mobile technology and the open Internet have been co-opted into history’s largest government surveillance network. Is there any way to “take back the net,” or will national powers start breaking up the Internet into separate fiefdoms?

[Editor's Note: We weren't able to touch base with Editor-at-Large Geoff Duncan in time for last week's "Apple and EMI Offer DRM-Free Music via iTunes" (2007-04-02), but his extensive experience in the recording industry makes his commentary essential reading for anyone following the situation

Way back in 1994, Adam and Tonya graciously welcomed me to the TidBITS community by bringing me on board as TidBITS's managing editor. Now after more than 5,000 articles, almost 600 issues, and nearly twelve years, it's time to bid a fond farewell: this piece marks my final appearance in TidBITS as a regular staff member.
I realize many readers have only a fuzzy idea of my roles at TidBITS over the years - or no idea at all

Removing a dark cloud from the future of its now-iconic iPod music players, Apple Computer has announced it will pay Creative Technologies $100 million to settle all legal disputes between the companies

In what may turn out to be one of the largest consumer electronics product recalls in history, computer maker Dell is voluntarily recalling some 4.1 million batteries sold with a wide range of its notebook systems over a more-than-two-year period ranging from 01-Apr-04 through 18-Jul-06

Much of the recent talk of running non-Macintosh operating systems on Apple's new breed of Intel-based Macs has focused on virtualization solutions like Parallels Desktop (see "Parallels Desktop: The Switch is Complete") and VMware's as-yet-unreleased product (see "More, Less, and No Information on Running Windows on a Mac"), but let's not forget the product announcement that started the ball rolling officially: Apple Computer's Boot Camp (see "Apple Opens Boot Camp for Windows Users"), which enables Intel-based Macs to restart running Windows XP and is scheduled to be included in some way with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard.
Apple last week released version 1.1 of its public beta of Boot Camp, adding support for Apple's brand-new Xeon-based Mac Pro and Xserve systems, adding partition p

Creative Labs, the company that has been struggling in the digital music player market longer than Apple has been making iPods, announced it has filed a patent infringement suit against Apple Computer over the interface to its iPod and iPod nano music players.
Creative claims Apple's products infringe on its "Zen" patent (U.S